Oishi sou?
Close encounters with gejigeji are an effective cure to the traditional British fear of teensy weensy spiders, but still there remains something unappealing about humungous spider crabs.
For my birthday, Pa gave me a flash gun, which enabled me to shoot this scary monster good and proper.
[Enoshima aquarium]
"Oishi sou!!!"
Actually, the show is great. It involves truly multi-talented girls and some remarkable sea mammals who do lots of clever things including leaping out of the water in time to the music.
[Enoshima Aquarium]
Actually for my 40th birthday I got a visit to Enoshima Aquarium and a dip in the black waters of Inamuragasaki Onsen.
Very funny being at a Japanese aquarium. As I stood in horror, eyeball to tentacle with some monstrous sea creature, little tots would run up to the tanks excitedly squealing "oishi sou oishi sou oishi sou", which means "it looks delicious", which is even more frightening when you consider that how it looks is at least 75% of the appreciation of food to the Japanese. In fact sometimes looks are so important that you don't really need to eat the food at all, an attitude that would clearly be a good solution to the obesity problems of the western world.
Happy Christmas!
The duck was delicious, thanks to James' Google-based cooking expertise.
Question is what to do with the pint of fat that came out.
Today I shot a duck. What are you having for Christmas dinner?
[Hachimangu pond, Kamakura]
year-end cleanup pic 4:
While some assumed poor James enjoys raw prawn and sea urchin gonads, this is closer to the truth, and would have been blogged earlier if not for the camera shake.
[Kua'aina, Kamakura]
year-end cleanup pic 3:
In a similar way to how computer programs wont work unless you copy the magic from someone else's code, a macro lens will not work correctly unless initialised with a pollen covered bee. This was that shot.
year-end cleanup pic 2:
The foreigners cemetery is a historical landmark in Yokohama, while the building in the background is the Landmark Tower. Completed for the end of the last millennium, it is still the tallest building in Japan
In Western Britain, where I grew up, it is very very dark in winter, but in springtime some weak sunlight occasionally escapes round the edge of the cloud, enabling people to see how dusty everything has become over the winter. Thus, "spring cleaning". Here, in Eastern Japan, it is the other way round. The driest, brightest, clearest time of year is late December. So I suppose this must be the real reason why the Japanese do their big cleaning at the end of the year.
In order to try to fit in with the tradition, I am cleaning my flickr photostream, and so have decided to blog some of the pictures I like, but failed to blog when they were taken.
[year-end cleanup pic 1: wet lotus leaves at Engakuji, Kamakura]
For my fortieth birthday I'd like a garden and a cat. Is that why this picture appeals? (OK so the pedants will be unable to spot the cats, but there were plenty around).
Some chance...
This may look common-or-garden to many of you, but actually this exotic and historical house in Yokohama is so exotic and historical that it's a museum!
Our windows got cleaned. This job looks like such fun. The colleague I was with when I took the picture seemed to think it is dangerous employment. I suspect the most dangerous part is having to breathe neat Shin-Sugita air.
[taken by iphone]
Nine lessons and carols comes early in the Yokohama foreign community, because they all flee the country in mid-December. As usual James and I did our best for the worst choir in Christendom. As you would expect, he always sings both in time and in tune. I added some volume to the altos and bore the enormous responsibility of being lectern monitor, which was very exciting, since it meant I got to play with electronics (the mircophone).
Do buildings look like this in your country too?
...and here is the mall referred to yesterday, "Lalaport", at Kashiwa no ha Campus, all dressed up for winterval. It is a slight improvement over a few years ago, in that an edible meal can be obtained there. A few years ago there was nothing at all apart from the station, then a McDonalds appeared, and then the rest followed a year or so later...
"We, members of the UK science community, have the utmost confidence in the observational evidence for global warming and the scientific basis for concluding that it is due primarily to human activities. The evidence and the science are deep and extensive. They come from decades of painstaking and meticulous research, by many thousands of scientists across the world who adhere to the highest levels of professional integrity. That research has been subject to peer review and publication, providing traceability of the evidence and support for the scientific method.
The science of climate change draws on fundamental research from an increasing number of disciplines, many of which are represented here. As professional scientists, from students to senior professors, we uphold the findings of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, which concludes that ‘Warming of the climate system is unequivocal’ and that ‘Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations’."
Tokyo university's Center for Climate System Research is located on the Kashiwa campus which is, unfortunately, not the Hongo campus. It is located about thirty minutes north of Tokyo on the "geek express" which is a special train line joining the characterless new-town-for-scientists-only of Tsukuba directly to the Akihabara Yodobashi Camera 10 story electric store. To make you feel extra good on arrival at the campus, the close-by bus stop is at the National Cancer Centre. This jolly start prepares you fittingly for the desolation of the campus itself. The huge concrete office buildings have been built in a infinite row, facing an infinite stretch of barren concrete. Staring across the flat expanse my mind fills in the people, coffee shops, student shops, convenience stores that should be there. But the closest anything is a 10 minute bus ride away, at the newly erected generic mall, "LalaPort" located next to the only slightly less new railway station, fittingly called "Kashiwa no ha campus". From there you may as well head straight back to Yodobashi Camera.
Ikuo Hirayama, "the most famous artist in all Japan" (so say our friends), died a few days ago. This is the kanji from the front of his house ("Hira" above "Yama"), just down the road from ours, and right next to the radiant gingko. I expect someone good at words would find a haiku in there somewhere...
Today I did the annual evaluation of the members of JUMP (named so that QUMP group at the UK MetO know we are just copying them smaller and cheaper, and pose no real threat). I am happy to report that the partition of labour within the group is considerably more fair than that shown in this photo.
...Kamakura is hilly, so it can never be an entirely flat ride, but I am not sure all of the jinriksha pullers would agree to go this extra steep uphill to the actual entrance gate to Zuisenji.
While those yellow trees that were sheltered from the typhoon a few weeks ago are looking good, the orange, for which Japan is famous is not up to much this year. Fortunate then that there is still some orange to be found.
Before generalisations arise about men having all the gear and women caring more that their electronics matches their outfit, note the young lady in the background whose SLR peaks from under her jacket.
I suppose this is why in some parts of the world this season is called "fall". Where I come from, it is autumn: the leaves are brown, the sky is gray, then the next day after the storm there is a slippery brown mush on the ground.
Those are gourds, and round about are aging strings of tiny origami cranes (its a bit of a scruffy shrine really), and there at the back in the darkness, are people actually laundering their money.
Zeniarai Benten is Kamakura's money laundering shrine. It is best to allow it to dry out before using though. As James once found out to his cost after a particularly wet mountain expedition, the ticket machines at the railway stations don't like wet money.
And then I found this.
The primary uncertainties surrounding air capture stem more from the lack of large-scale testing rather than scientific or technical concerns.Dessler replies:
Thus, using today's technology, it takes at leastWhile I would not be surprised to see an engineer claiming that the reciprocal of 1-1/3 is 1+1/3, I would hope most physicists would sum a few more terms in the Maclaurin series and get to 1+1/2 :-) However, a mathematician (me) might point out that the correct numbers based on the energy estimates above are actually 1-1/2 and its reciprocal, 2 :-) That is, half of total power output would have to be devoted to air capture, or alternatively total power output would have to double to reduce net emissions to zero; 2J of total power, with 1J devoted to sequestration, would leave 1J usable.0.5 J of energy to capture the emissions generated in producing 1 J of fossil fuel energy. If the energy for capturing carbon comes from fossil fuels, then at least a third of society's fossil fuel energy would have to be diverted to air capture to eliminate all emissions. Alternatively, it would require an increase in the total production of fossil fuel energy of at least a third.
In response to Belette, the problem is that sometimes nothing happens. Although, as I later learned over the breakfast table, actually at that very minute something so outrageous that I have been forbidden from blogging it, was in fact occurring on the internets.
Showing that Jomyoji tea shoppe really does have a British-style garden, the first snow drops I have seen for 8 years.
An obesity research group is considering revising as early as next year the waistline threshold, a key gauge used to diagnose obesity and metabolic syndrome, to better reflect the nation's actual healthThey have apparently realised that 85cm for a man's waist is not really a useful indicator of significant health problems, more likely a sign of a decent dinner.
Jomyoji, one of the top five Zen temples of Kamakura has an English tea shoppe in its grounds. I have avoided it for 8 years, because English tea shoppes in Japan sell cakes that look realistic but taste of salt rather than of sugar. This is so crushingly disappointing that its better to avoid the places altogether. I thought the Zen temple version would be the worst of the worst, but I was wrong. Not only were the cakes actually sweet and the coffee quite acceptable, but the garden was actually very realistic too.
There was even an on-site bakery, which is what the picture is of.
This time the focus is on data people, but to all climate modellers, whose arts are equally dark: in order to avoid being boiled alive after all is revealed, make sure you have fully published your climate model at the journal created especially for the purpose of improving transparency in modelling science, GMD.
Dear All,
I had a reply from Grant, and have made some changes to the paper - very little of substance, but I've lightly edited the wording throughout. I also added refs to Newell and Weare, and Angell (not A+Korshover), which seem relevant. Despite this, I've managed to cut a few lines off in total. I have also drafted replies to the reviewers (with their comments appended for reference).
We do have a 2 week extension agreed, to 11 Nov. However it doesn't really seem like there is much more that needs doing. More suggestions are welcome, however, and before resubmitting, *I need an explicit OK from each author*.
Don't come the raw prawn with me, and yes that's the ole sea urchin's gonads next to it... mmm delicious. But it would have felt kinder if the chef had killed the poor prawn rather than leaving its top half a-twitching on the plate.
Another abrupt climate change occurred yesterday and it is only 4 months since the last one. Now it is cold, and therefore "virtually certain" that all the mantises are dead including dear sweet Trevorina
Photo is taken in a sub-temple at Hase-Dera. It is a scary place. There is one little concrete statue for each dead baby. I hope Trevoria managed to make 10 times this many progeny before she died. Mantis infant mortality rates are very high...
A break from the nauseam on the empty blog, a quiz. Boy or girl?
Taking flight off the stairs to join the black kites swooping overhead seems a good solution to impossible to walk in shoes.
Autumn colours and cherry blossom in a single photo! The title of the photo gives it away. This is a cherry blossom that flowers in October. The tree is rather sparse now, so I wouldn't bet on it still being in flower by the time the maple tree in the background has turned all the way to red. But then again I do usually lose my bets...
[Zuisenji, Kamakura]
This was documented in Lin et al. [2007] who found from observational data that monitoring long-term near-surface daily minimum temperature trends at a single level on light wind nights will not produce the same trends as for long-term temperature trends at other heights near the surface. For instance, were the data from Lin et al. [2007] to be representative of biases in other station measurements taken at one height, then about 30% of the tropospheric warming during the 20th century reported by the IPCC would be explained as the result of this factor. A warm bias would occur even for daytime maximum temperatures for land locations at high latitudes during the winter when the surface temperature profile remains stably stratified all day.
This was documented in Lin et al. [2007] who found from observational data that monitoring long-term near-surface daily minimum temperature trends at a single level on light wind nights will not produce the same trends as for long-term temperature trends at other heights near the surface. For instance, were the data from Lin et al. [2007] to be representative of biases in other station measurements taken at one height, then the tropospheric warming during the 20th century reported by the IPCC would be underestimated by about 30% as the result of this factor. A cold bias would occur even for daytime maximum temperatures for land locations at high latitudes during the winter when the surface temperature profile remains stably stratified all day.
This was documented by Lin et al. [2007] who found from observational data that monitoring long-term near-surface daily minimum temperature trends at a single level on light wind nights will not produce the same trends as for long-term temperature trends at other heights near the surface (although it was a cool bias in that data for the time period and location examined). A warm bias could occur even for daytime maximum temperatures for land locations at high latitudes during the winter when the surface temperature profile remains stably stratified all day.
Commissioned by Steve to disambiguate kiddy kimonos, here's a 3 year old girl.
Yesterday, 7-5-3 festival day, I stood inconspicuously with my long lens along with the other inconspicuous men with inconspicuous long lenses, at the foto-place at the foot of the stairs by the bandstand, and we all took pics of happy families. It is quite entertaining. Basically the child is charged with climbing a large staircase wearing expensively rented constricting clothes and shoes it is impossible to walk in. Luckily parents are allowed to help. Despite all this it was smiles all round and I saw not a single tear or tantrum. Japanese kiddywinks are the best!
Then, most bafflingly, as we stood there surrounded by beautiful people in lovely kimono, one of the inconspicuous photographers came up and asked me (dressed in tatty jeans and drab jacket) to pose for him! Hmmm.. seems that I will never be an inconspicuous photographer after all...
In the comments to the tiny dot boy and his family, on Js empty blog Steve was getting curious about men's attire.
THis is how it seems to me:
0-10: "moe!" (dressed by Mum)
11-18: Exhausted school boy (dressed by school)
18-25: Fashion icon seeking mate (dressed by self)
25-65: Exhausted salaryman (soul and dress-sense owned by company, wife does what she can but his heart's not in it)
65+: Inconspicuous (obeys she who must be obeyed)
0-10 and 18-25 are by far the best. Here's one of the latter.
Our meeting last week was mostly about the last millennium, so as well as oceanography we also mused on some old trees, one of which (a ~500 year old ginkgo) frames most of the right hand side of this photo.
I often try to take this photo of the bandstand and several tori down the ~1.5 mile dead straight road between the beach and Hachimangu shrine in Kamakura. I like the lighting in this one but, the thing I find most interesting is that almost everyone who is not actually walking up the stairs is engaged in photography.
This year disaster training had to be postponed at the last minute due to a disaster; a typhoon was directly overhead. Luckily the replacement day was 20C and sunny. For the first time this year there was a 10 second count-down to the pretend earthquake. I do hope we will get one of those for the real thing. Then there will be time to grab my helmet and sit cuddling my Mac Pro under my desk. Really I just like any socially acceptable excuse to cuddle my Mac Pro.
.jpg){kind=link}